The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireless networks. Various types of networking technologies have been developed resulting in unprecedented expansion of wireless computer networks, television networks, telephony networks, and the like, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer. However, in order to continue to meet the increasing demands of consumers for fast and reliable wireless communications, wireless networking technologies must continue to evolve.
The evolution of wireless communications appears to be moving toward the implementation of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) environments. MIMO environments incorporate the use of multiple transmitting and receiving antennas to broadcast and detect multi-path signals. MIMO environments utilize multi-path signals in a manner that can effectively increase the bandwidth of communications within a MIMO channel. MIMO environments may also be coupled with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques to further increase the bandwidth afforded by a MIMO channel.
However, signals transmitted in MIMO environments, with or without OFDM, can be computationally complex to decode. Often conventional decoding schemes allow for increased error rates to minimize the complexity of decoding. In situations where increased error rates cannot be tolerated, decoding can become a bottleneck of the communications channel thereby reducing the throughput of the channel. As such, it is desirable to identify decoding schemes that are computationally less complex than conventional decoding schemes, but also provide for decreased error rates over convention solutions.